Wow. This article sums it up nicely. Im all in a panic now, although I am kind of enjoying a smug sense of self satisfaction; afterall: I live on a boat. I've dropped out, and.. and... oh just read the article.
How to Survive the Crash and Save the Earth

This is what I need to concentrate on:

Deck Plugs
Priority: severe
Description: remove bolt from missing deck plug holes, clean, drill .5 inch deeper, apply west system, plug (orient with grain), plane and sand as needed

antenna on mast
priority: non critical
Description: mount marine and 2 meter antenna on mast. route cables through mast

hull painted
priority: severe
haul out (after bottom scraped), apply bottom coat, repair rub rail, boot stripe, paint above rub rail?

holding tank
priority: severe
install holding tank in forward vberth, connect head discharge to holding tank intake, holding tank discharge to through-hull, pump out connection on top of holding tank accessible through forward hatch

insurance
priority: critical
list requirements:

Cabin Interior:
priority: non critical
Identify upholstery source & cost (will need to measure cushions)

Cabin Interior:
priority: non critical
Sand and varnish worn deck
Smooth and paint uneven surfaces
Sand, apply polysulfide bedding compound, varnish bridge

Engine
Priority: severe
schedule appt with Gary for oil change and sacraficial zincs

Im back into the running thing and feeling a lot better for it. Yesterday I ran a little over 3 miles and even managed a little rock climbing down in Corona Del Mar to keep it interesting. I think I better try a new course every once in awhile as it gets a little routine otherwise. Yesterdays run involved some very serious changes in elevation, though Saturdays run in Aliso Woods park really beat me up pretty good. Still feeling sore from that one, but it was a beautiful place to be. Found a cave! Sign said it was called "Dripping Cave"! Used by stage coach robbers back in the day. Dripping cave! I'll let you make your own Freudian interpretations...

+
running
pride in my work/programming
friends
learning to sail


-
pills
smoking
not running
betraying my friends
stress at too much work

Breakin the law!

Thankfully I've always had a fairly healthy disregard for authority:

Section 17.23.020 Permits Required.


No person shall live-aboard any vessel assigned to an offshore mooring without first having obtained a live-aboard permit from the Harbor Resources Director. No person shall live-aboard any vessel on an onshore mooring in Newport Harbor. No live-aboard permit shall be issued except to a person holding a valid mooring permit issued pursuant to Chapter 17.22 of the Newport Beach Municipal Code. (Ord. 2002-18 (part), 2002)

Details here

I swam home tonight. No dinghy at the club; no yacht club boat to borrow, no shore boat to catch. I figured this might happen, but decided to chance it and go for a nice long run to clear my mind. So I ran, and when I got back to the club I found myself stranded. I called Matt to see if I could crash there. He wasn't home. I called Mark to see if I could crash at his place. He wasn't home. Having exhausted my local friends with spare beds, I parked on "F" street, stripped down to my shorts and swam the 50 yards to my boat in total darkness. Im such a bad ass. Kind of like a commando. Everything went really well until I swam in to the middle of a school of large fish. The water turned a little jumpy as they broke the surface to get out of the way. At 9:00 pm (whilst swimming half naked in darkness) a school of fish is just as terrifying as a shark. Don't let anyone tell you different.

I've been playing around with a camera in low level light conditions. I leave the lense open for 6 or 7 seconds or so. Even in almost total darkness Im able to get these really cool photos... I finally got the idea of using a tripod which helps reduce the bluriness caused by holding the camera. Here is a picture I just took from Faith:

Things Im gonna do to keep busy (because thats important, and Im sure as hell not busy enough):

Tripod, all cams, watercolors: moved to Faith. Get some paint on a canvas. Enough with the computers already.

Ok, more computers: Debian linux installed on rackmount server for faith

Class enrolled at OCC

Oh, and while we are on the subject of the Big Goddamn List:

Faith Projects
Mast boots done
Head faucet adapter
Haul out scheduled done
Title/Mooring plan done

Personal Projects
Project Healthy & Project No completed done
Auto brake lights, oil change, tune up done

Hobby Projects
Antennas on mast
Weather gear on mast

I live on a boat. I had some friends over last weekend, one of which remarked "I feel like Im dreaming...". I started to laugh, as I thought he was kidding. But he was not. Im kind of used to gently rocking back and forth on the water in this floating wooden thing. Every once in a while Im reminded that its an unusal place to live. In many ways it is pretty surreal. But I've been at it for awhile now, so what was once surreal is just, um... real.

The sea lions are really loud tonight. I guess they are feeling somewhat amorous. Several of them have gathered on someones running board and are calling out (loudly) into the night. Its straight out of Star Wars. They even look like Jabba in many regards. I'll see if I cant record them somehow and post an audio file.

Most of my time these days is spent thinking of a certain young lady who will remain nameless. I'm pretty much having to reinvent.. no, rediscover who I am. Two personalities (after having grown so closely together) ... now having been severed.. well, Im just not feeling exactly whole right now. Or intact. Im, um... wounded. Fucking cut in two, really...

Im not gonna reduce it to some psycho babble, as I couldn't even if I wanted to. I miss her more than I've ever missed anything or anyone ever before. I keep repeating to myself that I did this for all the right reasons.

Sometimes I believe it.

I live on a boat, and am there now actually. Im gently rocking back and forth. Its 10:51 pm and as I look out the port hole, the lights from the houses ashore are refracted into patterns of mathematical genius on the water. I see these patterns, and I see how they change as the tide is rushing out, and I know that I could never comphrehend the angles and equations that define the interactions of those ripples bouncing off one another.

Last weekend, while sailing back from Catalina I watched the bow of Faith rise and fall into each passing wave. The bow would crash into the water as we rode down each wave; as we broke the surface it would send up a tumultuos foam of spray and current... math, and reason and perfection and thousands of bubbles mixing into the water. Within a second we had sailed past them and they were gone, already we were riding up the next wave. I could never count that high. I could never do the math... I could never understand it.

Somehow knowing that allows me to know that their is a God.

Project GPS Watch is up and running. Here are some charts recorded of my running, as well as a Sat image of my course using the XML file output of the watch. Its a very cool little toy. I tend to stare at it while running, which is entirely unsafe.

Another day and a new course. Ran from the club to Balboa Island, around Balboa Island, and back to the club. Not entirely sure how far it was (as Im still sans GPS watch) but I like to think it was 5 miles.
Ran with my new Dell DJ 20 gig mp3 player. Sadly enough the headphones are horrible. Either my ears are too small or the ear bud style headphones are too large, but I had to take them out because my ears were hurting something fierce. So now I get to research new headphones? Any recommendations?
Here is a sat pic of the run:

Well, I've gonna knock out a few projects on Faith over the weekend. Here are two high res photos of Faith taken a few years ago. I need to rig the mainsheet as shown. Looks intimidating...
Second project is to hand sew some mast boots. They keep freshwater (rain, condensation) out of the bilge. I should have done this a long time ago...

Like most blogs, this is really little more than a journal I write for myself and myself alone. I use it to organize my thoughts, share some info online and maybe learn something about myself in the process. I really doubt anyone reads this blog, but for the .000287 people who actually are reading this let me make it real clear that I procrastinate terribly. I really procrastinate. I feel so behind on so many projects. It took me 6 months to even start keeping this journal. So here is my BIG GODDAMN LIST of things I need to act on:

Faith Projects
Mast boots
Head faucet adapter
Haul out scheduled
Title/Mooring plan

Personal Projects
Project Healthy & Project No completed
Auto brake lights, oil change, tune up

Hobby Projects
Antennas on mast
Weather gear on mast

I'll check these things off as they are completed... which will be, um... ok I gotta go now. Tomorrow, maybe?

Pushed myself a little further on my run yesterday. Didn't realize how much further until I plotted my course on some sat imagery:
I marked Faiths approximate position with happy yellow star..

I've seen a number of folks track their running via gps wristwatches and then plot their course on a map. Needless to say I was very impressed and sought to do the same. I've been reading up on nifty little GPS watches as well as biometric monitors (heart rate, etc) and have decided that I like these toys and want them. However, in the meantime Im just gonna plot my course the old fashioned way. (and save $500 in the process. Or as I like to say: Profit!) I did this using some imagery gathered by USAPhotoMaps and Fireworks MX 2004
Here are my results so far:

Very cool. If I procrastinate long enough someone does my work for me.Excellent image viewer/online photo archive tool. You may expect to see this on my site soon.

Very cool. Im getting closer in finding some resources that will allow me to build a low power server which gathers telemetry from Faith and shares it online. Looks like these guys might be able to help.

GPS/GIS application development for the Pocket PC - Part 1 of 5

Wow. Great sensor data (GPS to pocketPC)

Sensor Projects:

I like the collection of data.

Purpose: gather data from various sensors. record data for trend analysis. make data available online.

Sources of data:

wind speed
wind direction
indoor temperature
outdoor temperature
water temperature
water depth
water current (speed? direction?)
wave action (frequency? height?)
barometric pressure
motion detection
battery volts
amp hours
solar panel output

required tools:

weather monitor station
battery monitor
computer to record data

share data:
upload data to external server OR low power on board server

sites of interest:
http://solarpc.com/
http://www.peetbros.com

Things I need to do in no particular order:

Sign up for class at OCC

Sign up for electronics class at UCI

Faith projects:
Cowl vent boxes stripped, varnished or painted
Solar charger box
Radio antennas mounted somewhere proper
Upholstery source identified
electronics dash scraped, sanded, varnished, filled, varnished again
Y-valve on head
Engine oil changed, sacrifical zincs

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things
And this here is a link to a blog Im really very found of. Its a directory of wonderful and interesting things. Sometimes there are not so interesting things there, but that rarely happens. And that in itself is wonderful.

FAITH - Justin Williams
This is the site that shows some pictures, links to this blog, and really little else. Still new at the blogging thing. How am I doing so far?

Well, I was gonna write my own software to post some thoughts online. This 'gonna' process lasted about 6 months or so. Thats half a year. So now Im signed with Blogger. 6 seconds later. yeha lazy!